Stuck in recovery mode

[Lost Dog]

Well, my life with my RT-N66R has been short lived. I seem to be stuck in recovery mode. I started out with the stock firmware then tried a Tomato build. It started to get really buggy on wireless so I tried going to the latest Merlin build.

At this point I'm at a loss. I'm stuck in recovery mode. I've tried the ASUS recovery tool in Win 8, the web based flash in both Win 8 and Linux Mint and also tftp in linux mint. I can upload the firmware successfully in all cases.

I let the router sit for up to 45 minutes then reboot. It immediately goes back to recovery mode. The only light is the one indicating which port has a connection. Even the power light is off.

Using the recovery tool it goes through the update process and when it's done (~15 minutes or so) it gives a message that it can't find the router on the network.

Using the web based tool it states the upload is successful and will reboot. It never reboots. I click the continue option and it then errors out that no connection can be found to 192.168.1.1.

A 30/30/30 reboot goes right back to recovery mode.

I've tried going back to the stock firmware and have the same issue.

Can anyone give any suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[Lost Dog]

Ok, well, I'm back up.

Neither a merlin build or stock would flash. Just got stuck in the recovery mode each time. Even after nvram 30/30/30 resets. Strangely, it flashed back to Tomato Shibby with no issues at all.

From Tomato I used the upgrade option and selected the latest Merlin build and it flashed successfully. I cleared the nvram from both the web interface and the router itself. Each time it booted back to asuswrt-merlin without problems.

Strange...

 

[jlake]

There's no need to do a 30-30-30 reset. That's the reason it is going in to recovery mode. You are powering on the router with reset button pressed. Don't do that. Don't do that unless you want to put it in recovery mode......which I assume you don't.

To reset the router to defaults:

1. Power on the router
2. Wait 3 minutes
3. Press and hold the reset button for 10 seconds

There are other reset methods that have been widely discussed in forum if you do a forum search.

 

[Lost Dog]

There's no need to do a 30-30-30 reset. That's the reason it is going in to recovery mode. You are powering on the router with reset button pressed. Don't do that. Don't do that unless you want to put it in recovery mode......which I assume you don't.

To reset the router to defaults:

1. Power on the router
2. Wait 3 minutes
3. Press and hold the reset button for 10 seconds

There are other reset methods that have been widely discussed in forum if you do a forum search.

That's the strange thing... I only tried the 30-30-30 because nothing else was working. After a flash using the three options (tftp, web based or recovery program) the router would go offline. The power LED would turn off and I could not ping the router. A power off / power on would drop it right back in to recovery mode.

The only thing that got me up and running again was flashing back to Tomato. Thankfully flashing asuswrt-merlin from the Tomato interface worked.

 

[jlake]

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?p=79674

 

[KGB7]

That's the strange thing... I only tried the 30-30-30 because nothing else was working. After a flash using the three options (tftp, web based or recovery program) the router would go offline. The power LED would turn off and I could not ping the router. A power off / power on would drop it right back in to recovery mode.

The only thing that got me up and running again was flashing back to Tomato. Thankfully flashing asuswrt-merlin from the Tomato interface worked.

30.30.30 method, DOES NOT... i repeat again.. DOES NOT WORK on Asus routers!

 

[RMerlin]

30.30.30 method, DOES NOT... i repeat again.. DOES NOT WORK on Asus routers!

Actually, 30-30-30 is what I call a DDWrtism. It was their attempt at devising one single reset method that would work on the largest list of routers possible, so they wouldn't have to give a different procedure for each routers used by their users.

 

[Lost Dog]

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?p=79674

Fantastic link. Thanks for pointing that out. The upload quite often stalled out which explains the corrupted data that would force the recovery mode. The failed upload would happen using all three methods.

I found that tftp was the most reliable but only if I initialized the upload before going in to recovery mode. The tftp command I used would retry until it could connect and the second recovery mode started it would initialize the upload.

Is there a reason to use this recovery upgrade method as opposed to the option within the admin page on the router?

Thanks for all the help!

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
OP, from your post after flashing I did not see you powered off the router. Instead you reboot the router? This router is bullet proof as far as bricking goes.

 

[Lost Dog]

Hi,
OP, from your post after flashing I did not see you powered off the router. Instead you reboot the router? This router is bullet proof as far as bricking goes.

I tried everything... Reboot, power off and let sit, etc. Piecing together everything on here what I suspect happened was an in complete upload which then put it in the recovery mode loop. Not sure why the Tomato firmware flashed with no issue but that got me up and running and I was able to get asuswrt-merlin flashed.